The recorded sound is lucid . . . Maisky's transcriptions of songs and piano pieces are excellent, allowing the cellist to indulge to the full his impassioned and eloquent style.

Record Review /
John Warrack,
Gramophone (London) / 01. February 2008

The five song transcriptions here also suit the cello wonderfully . . . Maisky's music-making, together with pianist Sergio Tiempo's . . . in these shorter melodies has a compelling driving force that carries Rachmaninov's unending lines, always rewarding the ear for being patient . . . the ensemble captures a rare propinquity and "joie de vivre", always colourful and polished, avoiding the superficial slickness that can undermine such soulful writing. The sound is always rounded and pleasing . . . [G minor Sonata & "Danse orientale"]: this is tremendous playing, actually, the Allegro scherzando never losing its grip either and the sonorities of the Andante especially well suffused. Maisky displays a particular rapport with Tiempo in this most Russian of repertoire, and the listener certainly gets the benefit of the duo's common approach . . . This CD has ample dynamism and energy tempered with long-term vision, and Maisky's transcriptions complement the cello repertory in a viable and helpful way.

Record Review /
Mark Tanner,
International Record Review (London) / 01. March 2008

Maisky plays Rachmaninov

Although he was among Russia's greatest talents as composer, pianist and conductor, Sergei Rachmaninov was a prey to self-doubt. The fiasco of the 1897 premiere of his First Symphony - due entirely to the performance rather than the quality of the music - plunged him into a creative crisis for which he had to seek medical help. And although treatment with hypnosis by Dr. Nikolai Dahl enabled him to break his writer's block with the Second Piano Concerto, Rachmaninov never shook off his Brucknerian lack of faith in his creative judgment. Someone had only to criticize a work and Rachmaninov would start worrying about rewriting or cutting. His beautiful Cello Sonata was a case in point. The British violist Lionel Tertis played just the two central movements on the viola, changing their order so that the scherzo came second; and to his horror, on one occasion he saw Rachmaninov sitting in the front row. Hastening to apologize to the composer afterwards for omitting the outer movements, he was told: “I quite agree with you - they are weak movements. I never play them myself."

Surely this was another instance of Rachmaninov's self-deprecation. For the Cello Sonata is a magnificent example of the genre, standing out among his few chamber works. Its only rival is the Second Elegiac Trio, in memory of Tchaikovsky - and that piece reveals its beauties reluctantly, whereas the Cello Sonata is prodigal in its outpouring of melody. Composed just after the Second Piano Concerto, in the summer of 1901, it was written for the cellist Anatoli Brandukov and dedicated to him; and it was no coincidence that Dr. Dahl was an amateur cellist - having dedicated his concerto to the doctor, Rachmaninov was paying a further tribute.

Like the Second Symphony and Third Piano Concerto, the sonata is laid out on a lavish scale. Both outer movements are in sonata form, the first having a brooding slow introduction and a passionately beautiful second subject. The stormy scherzo comes next, interrupted twice by its gorgeously lyrical Trio. The song-like Andante is the heart of the work. The finale begins in a carefree manner but is diverted by the lovely second theme and there is an extended moody development before the main themes return. The cello writing is idiomatic but the instrument is mainly restricted to singing, while most of the drama is in the superb piano part. Rachmaninov gave the premiere himself with Brandukov - who was to be one of the “best men" at his wedding - in Moscow on 2 December 1901. He then did more work on the piece, adding the racy coda to the finale, and completed it on 12 December. The sonata was published the following March.

Mischa Maisky had his own problems with the sonata. “I have been playing it for a long time but at first I didn't play it complete because I had doubts about the last movement", he says. “It was Gregor Piatigorsky who convinced me that it was my problem and not Rachmaninov's. I never studied it with Rostropovich, although I was in the class when it was played - I recall an unforgettable performance by Natalia Gutman. I did go through it with Piatigorsky - I studied most of the cello repertoire with him - and about 30 years ago I started playing the entire work." The sonata then became an integral part of his repertoire but he hesitated to document his interpretation. “Obviously in this piece the pianist is so important. That is why I didn't record it until now." Having waited for years to find the right partner, he feels his search has ended with the Venezuelan-born Argentine artist Sergio Tiempo. “I seem to feel more comfortable in Russian music with South American pianists", he says, pointing out that he has worked on many pieces with Martha Argerich.

In compiling an all-Rachmaninov sequence, Maisky has chosen one other piece originally for cello, the Oriental Dance, first performed by Rachmaninov and Brandukov on 30 January 1892. Otherwise he has made transcriptions of piano pieces and songs. Rachmaninov, who was a keen maker of transcriptions including one of his own songs, Daisies, would surely not have minded - especially since, as with his Schubert and Mendelssohn transcriptions, Maisky has striven to be as faithful as possible to the originals. “Normally I don't even claim to make transcriptions", he says. “My aim is to change as little as possible, if anything. In some cases I change the tonality a bit." Élégie and Mélodie, originally for piano, come from autumn 1892 and are dedicated to the composer Anton Arensky, along with the other three pieces of op. 3 (including the C sharp minor Prelude). “The Élégie has always been one of my favourite piano pieces", says Maisky. “Since I was a teenager I have dreamt of playing it on the cello, but I never did until now." He has transposed it up slightly. “It is very beautiful in E flat minor but half a tone higher in E minor it sounds even better on the cello." The other piano piece here is the G flat Prelude(also transposed up a semitone), marked Largo, last of a set of ten that Rachmaninov mostly wrote in 1905.

Rachmaninov composed more than 80 songs of high quality, often with great singers in mind such as Feodor Chaliapin, Nina Koshetz or Antonina Nezhdanova (for whom he wrote the wordless Vocalise). Some years ago Maisky recorded the Vocalise, as well as Sing not to me, beautiful maiden and How fair this spot. When preparing this programme, he returned to the volumes of songs. “Considering that there are so many of them, I thought it would be easy to find a few more, but actually it was not easy at all. There were only eight or nine that I could choose and even with those it was difficult. In the songs I basically play the melody. I might take a note from the piano part but I don't add a single note."

The five songs here reflect not only Rachmaninov's musicality but his literary taste and his way of spreading dedications round his friends and extended family. In the Silence of the Night (1890), to Afanasi Fet's words, is dedicated to the composer's cousin Vera Skalon. How Everyone Loves Thee (also known as The World Would See Thee Smile; 1896), to Alexei Tolstoy's text, is dedicated to the musician A.N. Ivanovsky. Two songs are from the op. 21 set (1902). Twilight, to a Guyau poem translated by Ivan Tkhorzhevsky, is inscribed to the singer Nadezhda Zabela-Vrubel. How My Heart Aches (also known as Sorrow in Springtime), a Glafira Galina setting, bears a dedication to the composer's brother-in-law Vladimir Satin. Night Is Mournful (1906), to Ivan Bunin's text, is dedicated like all of op. 26 to Maria and Arkadi Kerzin, founders of the Circle of Lovers of Russian Music.